True.Maybe "If it sounds too good to be true, it is" could be used for streetwise, and in trading that line could be exchanged for. "Everyone has a key. Whether gold, prestige or power, when you know the key, they are in your grasp."

Or something like that. When making these lists, some of the numbers will usually be better than others. I think people who have a better idea for the weaker ones can post just one single line, instead of a whole list.

Edit:

Lockpick

1- Who needs to pick locks when you have an axe?2- You can open any lock... As long as you have the mold of the key, an available smith and enough time to craft a copy.3- You know the old “slip the knife between the door and the frame” trick. That counts as lockpicking, right?4- You can move a pin around to pick simple locks.5- You can use a Torsion Wrench pretty well.6- You know the most common locking mechanisms, and their weaknesses.7- With enough time, most locks can be picked. Unfortunately, you never get that much time.8- No safe is safe from you.9- What one man can create, you can bypass.10- Even the craftsmen magi of legends would not be able to bar your way.

Spears:1. Handle it the other way around, or you gonna hurt yourself.2. Once you cooked a chicken with a spittle.3. Now you can hurt a straw dummy really badly.4. You can hunt down a cow, but hardly defeat the farmer.5. At this point you can enroll for pitchfork militia.6. The stone-age thrusting instincts can lead you to victory now and then.7. Occasionally sculptors use you as a model for Neptune statues.8. You can make a whole-carcass shish-kebab for cannibals. Or of cannibals.9. You could teach Spartans a lot.10. They shall not pass!

Crafting:1. The blacksmith could entrust you to operate the bellows.2. Horseshoes! Bronze nails! Cheap!3. You can run a serious business fixing farmers' utensils.4. If given a bucket and a scythe you can make a helmet and a sword.5. The schematics don't look all Greek to you anymore.6. Your products meet the Imperial Guards' standards. But they still don't pay you well.7. Some of your products can even be bought by kings, to be used for ceremonial purposes.8. Now you can even work with precious metals without wasting half of your ore.9. Someone suspects these are magical enhancements you apply on weapons and armors.10. You produce things worth warlords and gods. Pity the latter don't put orders often.

PS: Some ideas

Blocking1. Careful not to drop it, you may break your foot.8. The next thing your opponents face after your shield is a casket lid.

Throwing7. When you juggle knives for fun many witnesses feel rather uneasy.

That one's funny. I tried to make my own version of etiquette a little different, however. Basically, as different greetings that get more elaborate and humble as they go. Not sure if it work though. Opinions?

Ettiquete

1- “Heya, Mister Empreror! How’s it hanging?”2- “Why all these fancy words? I can’t even get what you’re saying!”3- “Oops! I forgot to bow.”4- “Greetings, Lord, and thank you for your time”5- “I am honored by your presence and attention, my Lord.”6- “I beg your pardon for my intrusion, my Lord, and hope the value of my words will earn your forgiveness.”7- “My humble greetings to you, my Lord. I bow beneath your might and humbly request but a moment of your attention”8- “As the sages say, “Wise is the emperor who listens even to the barking of dogs, for he will always know when danger approaches.” With this in mind, will you grant me audience, your Lordship?”9- “Your Lordship, may your walk eternally among the glory of your works. This servant, who is not fit to walk in your shadow, in his infinite weakness, requests your words and your wisdom.”10- “Your most August Lordship, I am unworthy of such a kind gift as your attention. And if I accept this gift, it is for no reason other than I am certain that I shall use it only to benefit you and your cause further.”

I hope you'll forgive, contrary to your request in the OP, a mild freak-out.

If my math is correct, it currently costs 170 SP to raise a skill from 20 (where they start) to 100. 225 is a much bigger number than 170. If SP gain has not been adjusted, that seems like it will make the game much, much harder than R3.

Do we know that any non Ergil/Vahabyte level players can complete combat paths in R4?

How will the change to skill rankings interact with critical strike, which previously increased by 1 each time it was used in a text adventure?

We're still discussing it.

Option 1 - instead of raising the skill by 1 every time you kill in dialogue, you'll have to kill 5 people to raise the skill from 2 to 3, 7 from 3 to 4, etc. Option 2 - increase your chance to score a critical by 1% (permanently) every time you kill in dialogue.

I hope you'll forgive, contrary to your request in the OP, a mild freak-out.

If my math is correct, it currently costs 170 SP to raise a skill from 20 (where they start) to 100. 225 is a much bigger number than 170. If SP gain has not been adjusted, that seems like it will make the game much, much harder than R3.

Your math is correct. I feel that on average the player was getting too many skill points after Teron, which really wasn't an issue due to the difficulty but called for some mechanisms to slow him down a bit to avoid maxing the primary skill in Maadoran and surrounding areas. Originally, the split was 1-50, 51-75, 76-100 (for skill points to skill values ratios). We changed it to 51-70, 71-90, 91-100 to slow you down, but it wasn't enough. The new system should help a lot.

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Do we know that any non Ergil/Vahabyte level players can complete combat paths in R4?

It hasn't been tested yet. If we erred on the side of caution and made the game much harder, we'll give you more skill points

I'd like to chime in with an enthusiastic vote for Option 2 on how to handle CS. It seems both simpler and preferable from a balance standpoint.

I can understand wanting to slow down player skill gain (after all, I had one character with 100 spear, 57 CS, 54 dodge and 50 crafting in the R3 demo), but I do think this nerf is probably too harsh. It will demand harshly optimized builds and/or a tedious level of munchkinism to be successful in combat paths unless SP gain is increased or opposing NPC strength is nerfed. Personally, I think there should be a reasonable range of viable combat builds, and hope that will be the case in R4/the full game as released.

Off topic, but I've not noticed much discussion of the alchemy section on the forums. Would feedback on what alchemical products are/are not useful in the demo (so far as I've been able to determine) be useful? Or has the system changed such that R3 alchemy balance isn't applicable to where R4 is going to be at?

Edit: A thing to note is that much of the feedback has come from the more enthusiastic, experienced players, such as Vahabyte, Ergil and myself. Most players probably won't go to the same immersion-breaking lengths to wring every SP out of the game that we have, and I'd hate if we broke the difficulty curve for people who want to play the game rather than plan the playthrough first on a spreadsheet to optimize their SP gain.

Intimidation(Is this a skill? I forget):1. You'd do better if you didn't tremble so much.2. You might scare a child or two, if they don't scare you.3. You can intimidate better with a deep growl. Which means you need to stop whimpering.4. You've learnt to stare and look angry. An old crone just might be cowed, you bully.5. You can scare a few, and some will scare you.6. No one will laugh at you again.7. Now they won't laugh behind you either.8. It'd take nerves of steel not to be cowed by you.9. If you say jump, they'll jump.10. If a glare could kill, you'd slaughter armies.

Barter:1. Two and two make four.2. You can just barely grasp the concept of profit and loss.3. Buy cheap, sell expensive. Wow.4. People just might buy what they want at higher prices.5. You just might break even. Or get completely ripped off.6. You can haggle until you get tired of it.7. Your trades are largely profitable.8. You can buy gold at the price of copper.9. You could make someone sell their own mother to you.10. And sell that mother back to them, making massive profits.

Persuasion:1. You can add "please" at the end of a sentence.2. You can avoid giving obvious signs that you are lying. You just can't tell a good lie though.3. You persuade someone well, if they are on your side to begin with.4. You'd win an aargument. With yourself.5. You've learnt debating, arguing, and reasoning. At least you've learnt that they are not the same.6. You can sway people to your side with some effort.7. You've learnt the art of using another's perspective to your advantage.8. Most people would believe anything you say.9. Your words are more dangerous than weapons.10. You could convinve fire that it's wet.

Streetwise:1. Keep your eyes open.2. YOu're not easily distrac-butterflies!3. You can tell when someone's lying. With the power of hindsight.4. You can smell a rat. Occasionally.5. You're not infallible, but you're no simpleton.6. Picking your pocket is not as easy as it looks.7. Your instinct guides you well enough.8. You're sharp and alert.9. It'd take a lot of illusions to dull your suspicions a little.10. Demons couldn't fool you. Mortals are nothing.

Lore:1. You can tell the letters apart, once in a while.2. You can write your name.3. You can tell which way is north on a map.4. You can tell how old something, if it's rusted.5. Books do not scare you anymore.6. You understand much of the old ways.7. You're no loremaster, but you're better than most by far.8. History is rarely a mystery to you.9. It takes a brief glance for you to tell everything about a relic.10. In time, you may forget what loremasters would barely even know.

I can understand wanting to slow down player skill gain (after all, I had one character with 100 spear, 57 CS, 54 dodge and 50 crafting in the R3 demo), but I do think this nerf is probably too harsh. It will demand harshly optimized builds and/or a tedious level of munchkinism to be successful in combat paths unless SP gain is increased or opposing NPC strength is nerfed. Personally, I think there should be a reasonable range of viable combat builds, and hope that will be the case in R4/the full game as released.

There should be a reasonable range, but there is nothing reasonable about the build you mentioned. Still, the goal isn't to weaken an average build but make it harder to max skills. Hopefully, you'd agree that you don't need to have 90-100 to be a good fighter.

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Off topic, but I've not noticed much discussion of the alchemy section on the forums. Would feedback on what alchemical products are/are not useful in the demo (so far as I've been able to determine) be useful? Or has the system changed such that R3 alchemy balance isn't applicable to where R4 is going to be at?

Yes, the feedback was very weak. Most of it came from the testers (on the testers' forum). The feedback would be useful, of course, so if you have some comments, start a new thread and hopefully more people would weigh in.

90-100 weapon skill isn't needed in the demo, but most good combat builds will have at least 70 skill in two combat related skills (crafting, weapon, defense and CS included in this category) with a third at 50. Hitting that mark, a thoroughly average combat build to end the demo with, currently requires 170 SP. After this nerf, it will cost 260 SP. That is brutal. It's not like the game was a cakewalk at R3 skill cost levels.

90-100 weapon skill isn't needed in the demo, but most good combat builds will have at least 70 skill in two combat related skills (crafting, weapon, defense and CS included in this category) with a third at 50. Hitting that mark, a thoroughly average combat build to end the demo with, currently requires 170 SP. After this nerf, it will cost 260 SP. That is brutal. It's not like the game was a cakewalk at R3 skill cost levels.

I dunno, I'm thinking a freak out is pretty justified here...

I think not, we are going to balance the fights. We are not going to just slap a change and don't test it. Have a little faith in our design abilities

Logged

"Hasta la victoria, siempre."

"Who has time? But then if we do not ever take time, how can we ever have it?"